Dr. Leonardo Torres’ attention was repeatedly pulled across the room as dozens of familiar families returned to West Boca Medical Center last week.

It wasn’t somber, like their first encounters. Torres lit up the room when he saw the infants and toddlers waddle back into the hospital.

“Seeing them now … ” Torres said, choking up slightly. “They look so social, so healthy, so alive. It’s incredible.”

These former patients spent anywhere from days to months in West Boca Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, typically for premature newborns with complications. Each year, the hospital arranges for patients, who were born up to five years ago, and their families to return and connect with hospital staff.

For many parents, who often have no choice but to leave their children in the NICU overnight with those same nurses and doctors, they form unbreakable bonds. That was the case for Diana Sandall, whose 4-month-old son Rich returned to the medical center Thursday.

“He spent 35 days in that NICU,” she said. “I spent every day with him and the incredible staff catered to us. They were so compassionate.”

It’s a “high-anxiety situation for parents,” said Mitch Feldman, CEO of the hospital, with the only unit in southern Palm Beach County equipped to handle the most severe neonatal cases.

A family returned to West Boca Medical Center after their now-15-month-old triplets were born in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. (From left to right) Blanca Silva, the triplets’ grandmother, holds Nicole; grandfather Xavier Silva hold Alen; mother Maria Silva holds Isabel; father Alan Monica (Photo by Lulu Ramadan / Palm Beach Post)

“It’s amazing for our entire staff to see a child born some years ago return,” Feldman said. “Not just survive, but thrive.”

Torres was reunited with triplets, Alen, Isabel and Nicole, now 15 months old, who donned all purple onesies that read, “I was a preemie, look at me now!”

Isabel was 2 pounds, 11 ounces at birth, said Maria Silva, the mother. The triplets spent two weeks in the NICU.

“Sometimes you think premature babies and you think complications,” Silva said. “It’s incredible to look around the room and see so many healthy babies.”

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